Three Rogues and a Baby
by Checkerboards
Summary: Who knew babysitting could be this much fun? *CAT*
1. CATs Cradle

_Author's Note: If you thought the Henchgirl Diaries were unauthorized, buddy, you ain't seen nothin' yet! Everyone and everything is taken completely without anyone's permission or knowledge. (Hey, Captain and Techie - surprise!) If you want the real thing, buy some comics and go to catverse dot com. _

* * *

The Scarecrow wheezed for breath as he skidded around the corner. His feet hit a drift of wet leaves and kept going without his consent, sending him careening right past the old, rotted brick building he'd been trying to escape around. _Wham_! Well, at least the pile of garbage spilling over from the opposite alley wall hadn't been filled with _too_ much noxious waste. _Next time_, he vowed as he scrambled up from his impromptu landing pad, _thematic or not, I'm wearing running shoes_.

This whole mess had started when his girls - rather, the three nitwits who had firmly attached themselves to him like feathers to tar - had announced all too cheerfully that they were going out that evening. He'd barely glanced up from his medical journal. They were leaving, and they were taking the Captain's spawn with them. Finally, he was going to get a night of peace and quiet. He ignored their stream of chatter until his ears picked up on one horrible phrase:

" - and Squishy, don't forget to warm up the bottles before you feed Kitten!"

_That_ got his attention as little else could. "Why would _I_ be feeding her?" he inquired, finally raising his head enough to notice that the three henchgirls were not carrying any kind of baby gear. More importantly, they weren't carrying the _baby_, who was seated happily in a purloined exersaucer, making various little plastic things go _chirp_ and _squawk_.

Techie rolled her eyes. "You're babysitting."

"You _promised_," Captain added. "We asked you earlier."

They had done no such thing! They'd asked him what he wanted for supper, and if they could buy a pony, and if they could _steal_ a pony, and if they could move to a lair that would be able to house a pony, and maybe one that could house a private theater, too, and if they could knock over Best Buy next time they were out, and they'd continued asking him pointless questions until he'd just given a noncommital grunt to everything without really listening -

Oh.

Well, that didn't matter. "Find someone else. I'm busy."

The girls exchanged a look. "Well, if you're sure you can't do it," Al drawled, "maybe I'll just have to stay with you. Alone." She flopped down on the couch and snuggled adoringly up to his side, laying her head on his papers and blinking with exaggerated doe eyes. One lock of purple-streaked hair draped itself irritatingly around his kneecap. "Think of the _fun_ we could have..."

If glares could be icy, the Scarecrow would have manifested Mr. Freeze in the living room by sheer force of will. "Get out of here," he snapped. "And take those two ninnies with you."

"Thanks, Squishy! We'll be back by...we'll be back!"

"And don't worry! Eddums said he'd come get her at midnight!" _Slam_.

Midnight. That...that was unexpectedly providential. Kitten opened her mouth wide in a gummy baby grin that was guaranteed to melt the hardest of hearts. The Scarecrow smiled back - _to keep the child happy_, he automatically excused it - and settled his papers into a neat pile on the rickety end table. Surely the rest of his night could be spent in a much more..._profitable_ manner than merely reading papers.

Kitten imperiously smacked the whale-on-a-spring and made entreating noises in his direction. With a stifled sigh, he folded himself into a tailor's seat in front of the infant and raised a slender hand to the array of toys in front of her. As he made the little lion spin around, Kitten's eyes crossed.

_Blorp_.

He glared at her through spit-up smeared glasses. "You are a wretch," he informed her gravely. She giggled happily and bounced in place, sending the disgusting warm milky liquid pattering in droplets all over the floor and, incidentally, the bits of him she hadn't hit the first time.

Oh, yes, the two hours until Nygma showed up were just going to _fly_ by...

* * *

The Riddler's evening was going remarkably badly.

It was bad enough to have writer's block when one was merely writing a paper for school. It was slightly more worrisome when one was a professional writer who depended on words for a living. To have writer's block when one was supposed to be traipsing about the city having fun, stealing things and getting under Batman's skin was unforgivable.

And so the Riddler sat in his lair, stony-faced, with a blank notebook in his lap. His henchgirls, bored with waiting, did each other's nails and swooned over whatever mindless romance was blaring on the TV screen. He was supposed to be a villain! An arch-criminal, proving his intellect to Gotham City and the rest of the world! He wasn't supposed to -

"Are you _sure_ we can't paint your nails?"

...to be turning down pedicures, manicures, and the occasional offer to perm his hair.

_BAM. BAM._ The door shook in its frame under two very heavy, deliberate impacts. The girls leaped to their feet, ignoring the bright green nail polish as it puddled on the carpet, and reached for their weaponry.

Eddie, on the other hand, bolted for the back room. Sure, it was cowardly, but the girls had been hired as bodyguards - and the best way to guard a body was to keep it in a secret place. He closed the door as quietly as possible and hunkered down behind a handy crate.

He heard Quiz's voice. "Hello? What's wr-_oof_!" There was a thump, as if someone had been brushed out of the way with enough force to send her halfway across the room.

"Edward," a grim voice intoned. "I know you're here." A splatty, humming, somehow _shimmery_ sound confirmed the intruder's identity. Freeze? What would Freeze be doing here - oh, _god_. Eddie, appropriately enough, froze in place as memory flitted across his forebrain.

"Stop hiding," Freeze said flatly, "or it will only be worse for you."

Eddie crept to the door and swung it open. "Hi...Victor," he said as casually as possible to the crazed cyborg in his living room. The girls, disarmed, struggled to get out of a block of ice that had quite successfully nailed them to the wall. Freeze slowly turned to face him, holding his freeze gun quite menacingly in his robotic hand. He was standing in the puddle of nail polish, but this probably wasn't the right moment to mention it. "How are things?"

"Very bad, as you are about to discover." Eddie slammed the door just in time to block the stream of ice that was headed his way. The door was instantly buried two feet deep in ice. _Shit_.

Aside from his usual activities - thieving, riddling, and generally getting into trouble - Eddie had quite a lucrative side business cracking codes for his fellow rogues. Knowing that the military brass had ordered transport of something that could become your new favorite toy did you no good unless you were able to find out where and when as well. Eddie could find such things out with only a few hours' work. When Freeze had approached him to delete one crate from a truckload's manifest, he hadn't thought twice about saying yes. It was always a good idea to have Freeze on your good side, and it would only take a few minutes to digitally break in and censor out the required information. But then he'd had that idea for his last (failed) heist, and there had been that _incident_ with the Scarecrow's girls and the truckload of Nixie Tubes, not to mention the fact that he was still coming to grips with being a father...between all of that and an unexpected trip to Arkham in the middle of the night (well, who expected Batman to arrest him when he was merely stepping out to get his dry cleaning?) it had been a busy couple of weeks. The whole Freeze-favor had completely slipped his mind.

Metal hands crunched the ice as Freeze dug his way toward the Riddler. "You didn't alter the manifest, Edward."

"Look, I'm sorry," Eddie babbled, trying to clear crates away from the only window. Wood splintered as he clawed desperately at the enormous pile of neatly boxed deathtrap components. "I was a little busy! I was in Arkham!" _For a few hours, anyway_.

"You should have taken care of my business before your own," Freeze continued. Eddie scrambled onto the pile of crates and threw himself at the window, scrabbling desperately at the sash. The window refused to move. _Come on, come on..._

"Look, whatever it was, I'll buy you a new one!" he shouted, pulling on the window with all of his might. His sweaty fingers slipped loose and his hand, newly freed, repaid him for the effort by smacking into his eye. He scowled at the window, swearing under his breath, and noticed a tiny metal catch that was firmly set into the locked position. _Click._

The window slid open effortlessly as Freeze crashed through the door behind him. Eddie spun to face him, feeling a cold fall wind whip around him as he put his back toward the open window.

"That cargo was unique," Freeze explained, stalking forward with his freeze gun at the ready.

"So I'll steal it for you!" Eddie edged backward, feeling the windowsill pressing into the backs of his thighs.

"It was destroyed shortly after its delivery," Freeze scowled.

"I'll...build you a new one?" Eddie said hopefully.

The scowl lines on Freeze's face deepened. "You cannot build me an experimental cloning chamber with DNA-altering abilities," he spat. "If I could not do it, why could _you_?"

_Because I'm the smartest man in Gotham_, Eddie thought automatically. Then again, would the smartest man in Gotham really be facing down a zero-degree lunatic in a bitterly cold storeroom with no coat on? "I'm sorry," he said, raising his hands as the barrel of the freeze gun trained itself on his face. "I _said_ I'm sorry."

"Sorry isn't good enough." A metallic finger curled around the trigger and squeezed.

Fortunately, by then the Riddler had shoved himself out of the window and had hit the ground running. The street behind him glistened with a thick crust of ice. He stumbled onto the sidewalk and sped up, racing in socked feet down the icy cold cement.

There was a terrific crash behind him as Mr. Freeze left the storeroom by simply walking through the wall. "Get back here, Nygma," he growled. Heavy, clanking footsteps reverberated in the cold alley as the furious rogue pushed his robotic body to its top speed.

The Riddler's top speed was roughly that of a starving cheetah who had just scented a herd of freshly lamed gazelles. He bolted around the corner and, wheezing as the cold air battered his lungs, skidded off down the street.

* * *

Midnight came and went with no sign of the Riddler. Twelve-thirty passed just as uneventfully, as did one, one-thirty, one-forty-five, and one-forty-six.

The Scarecrow drummed impatient fingers on the arm of the couch and glared at the door. This was ridiculous. He was supposed to have been out on the street _hours_ ago. How long had it been since he'd been out without the girls? It seemed like they'd always been there, procuring his subjects, doing his laundry, forcing him to eat and being cheerful about it...

And how long had the rumors been floating around Gotham's underworld? Now _there_ was a more vexing question. Not only had people dared to assume that he could no longer do business alone, but they had dared to insinuate that he liked things _better_ this way. As if having a trio of hyperactive, destructive women tagging along after him and treating him like their personal huggy-pet was what he _wanted_!

He could handle those rumors. What he _couldn't_ handle was the new bit of gossip about _needing_ the girls. He didn't need them! He didn't need _anyone_! It was easier _not_ to need anyone. People were fickle, and people left you, or they remained in your life only to hurt you. Why on earth would he grow to rely on _anyone_ when being alone made the world a safer place? Of course, it was nice not to have to worry about meals, or laundry, or any of the other trifling household duties that took time away from his work...but it wasn't as if he _depended_ on the girls to make them happen.

Not that he bothered telling anyone that, when an introduction to his latest toxin made them forget any and all rumors regarding his personal life. Still...well, it had been a while since he'd gone out alone. Surely a judicious hold-up or two would put those irritating rumors to rest. He could go out, commit some murder and mayhem, and be back home before the girls ever knew that he was gone.

Provided, of course, that someone ever came to watch the baby. He scowled at the clock. Well, if the Riddler had forgotten his paternal duties, he'd just go and remind him. He tucked the half-asleep baby into her pink snowsuit with the glittery skulls and scooped her up, yanking his mask down with his free hand. She cooed happily and snuggled into the burlap, falling fast asleep on his shoulder as he made his way into the frosty night.

* * *

Leaving the lair with the baby had been a bad idea. Leaving the lair in full costume had been a bad idea. Leaving the lair without the girls had been a bad idea. But leaving the lair in full costume, with the baby, without the girls had been an idea so bad that the God of Bad Ideas was probably hailing it as his latest miracle.

He had discovered just how terrible an idea he'd had when he'd been a mere twelve blocks from the Riddler's latest hideout. There were no shouts of "Stop!" or "You there! Hands up!" No, with Batman life was never that simple, which is why Crane was currently trying to ignore the dull throbbing of a bat-shaped contusion on his forehead as he pounded down the abandoned sidewalks.

At least there was one miniscule silver lining in this storm cloud of an evening. After that first bat-shaped projectile, the Caped Crusader had realized that he'd been carrying a baby - and of course, he wouldn't risk throwing anything at a man who was a) liable to drop the baby down the sewer or b) covered in fear toxin tubes that might flood tiny lungs with toxin if they were bumped the wrong way.

And so the capture had turned into a foot-race. He was fairly certain he could outrun the Batman. Those long, lanky legs of his could definitely send him farther with every stride, and it wasn't as if _he_ was carrying fifty pounds of armor and another twenty of various bat-shaped items crammed into a belt. No, all he had was a baby...a very _heavy_ baby.

In theory, she only weighed twenty pounds. After a brisk run over half the city, though, it felt as if she weighed more like fifty - and she wasn't helping matters by wriggling like a landed fish every time his feet touched the pavement. He hoisted her onto his opposite shoulder and ran onward, clinging tightly to her as she tried to arch herself backward.

His world narrowed to the strip of sidewalk in front of him. Surely he could duck down an alleyway, or cling to a passing car...

A bright green blur of salvation was lurking in the alley not ten steps away. He didn't know how the Riddler had gotten there. He didn't know why he was huddled behind a dumpster with no shoes on. Frankly, at this point, he didn't much care.

He skidded to a halt in front of the crouching rogue and thrust the baby at him. "Here," he snapped, dumping her in his lap.

Nygma automatically cradled her as he fought to stand up. "Take her back!" he hissed. "Don't-"

The Scarecrow ignored him as he hurtled down the alleyway. Batman would be more interested in the rogue with the baby, and he'd be able to slip out of the chase and go have an emergency lung transplant somewhere nearby. Everything was going to work out -

_Zzzzzzzap_!

He skidded on the suddenly-appearing snowdrift and faceplanted into a sheet of solid ice. "Crane," Freeze said hollowly, raising his gun.

This looked like a job for...someone else. The Scarecrow, bruised and gasping for breath, crawled backward off of the frozen ground and threw himself back down the alley that he'd just come out of. Within seconds, he'd caught up with Nygma.

"Take her back!" the Riddler panted, stumbling on a cracked square of cement. "He's after me!"

"Yes?" Scarecrow said coldly, wincing as he heard the relentless thudding of Bat-boots on concrete. "Well, _he's_ after _me_."

A spray of ice shot past the Scarecrow's right elbow as a batarang whizzed harmlessly past the Riddler. "_They're_ after _us_," Nygma corrected, cringing as the baby let out an ear-piercing shriek. "I'm holding a _baby_, you jackass!" he screamed over his shoulder.

The thudding of boots got a little closer. "Can't you ever keep your mouth _shut_?" Crane grumbled as they sped past an overturned coffee cart.

"There!" Nygma gasped. "Go left at that light!"

"Why should I?"

"The girls are eating dinner down there!"

"Dinner? At _two in the morning_?" Then again, with those three, anything was possible.

"They told me where they'd be," Nygma panted. "Just in case -"

The baby threw herself to the left. Nygma clutched her frantically, almost tripping over his own two feet as the baby kicked him with resentful fluffy pink toes. Then, finally realizing that she wasn't being held by her favorite Uncle Squish, she planted her face up to the Riddler's ear and let out a wail like a cat being drawn and quartered.

"Make her stop!" he pleaded.

"You're her father," Crane hissed spitefully. "_You_ make her stop."

"Shhh. Shhhhh. _Shhhhh_," Nygma tried, sounding more like a train impersonation than a parent. "It's okay. It's okay. It's-"

_Zzzzzzzap_! The intersection ahead was suddenly filled with the cheery twinkle of headlights on snow as Freeze iced a Mack truck into the ground. As one, the Scarecrow and the Riddler veered left.

Well, okay, so _maybe_ he just _happened_ to be running by the girls. It wasn't like he _needed_ them. It wasn't like he _wanted_ them to hop out and take Batman down, preferably with as many tire irons to the head as possible. He was an adult and he could take care of himself.

A stray ice-bolt whizzed over his head, turning the fire escape above him into a crystalline paradise of icy death. Oh, yes, he was doing _fine_.

(_to be continued_)


	2. Run, Rogues, Run

The girls' night out had been a riotous success. They'd managed to break a new record - in just under five hours, six separate establishments had called the cops on them - and they were celebrating with a table full of steaming Chinese food.

Al ducked as a spring whirred past her face. "Watch it!" she giggled, shooting a sideways glance at the pair of off-duty cops camped out in the corner.

"I'm almost done," Techie insisted, most of her attention on the half-disassembled spray of electronics in front of her. "This is going to be even better than last time!"

"You mean last time, when the batteries ran out and he and Poison Ivy almost killed us? That kind of last time?"

Techie glared at her, unaware that a red wire had woven itself festively through her fluffy black hair. "Smegface."

Al drew a clean chopstick from a nearby unused pack. "Of course you realize, this means war."

"Have at you!" Techie declared, picking up a handy screwdriver.

"En garde!"

"Ah-ha! Guard! Turn! Parry! Dodge! Spin! HA! Thrust!"

Chopstick met screwdriver in a mighty, splintery crash above the entrees.

"You seem a decent fellow. I hate to kill you."

"_You_ seem a decent fellow. I hate to die." They bounced in their chairs, jockeying for the high ground and trying desperately to disarm the other with as much flair as possible.

The Captain, with a chunk of orange chicken pinned between two chopsticks, was jerked out of her thoughts when a wildly flailing elbow smacked into her ear. "Guys! Guys! You're scaring the straights, okay?" she hissed, pointedly reminding them of the cops in the corner. "Is there any way we can do this tomorrow?"

Techie and Al ceremoniously crossed their 'swords' one last time and settled back into their seats. "What's up, doc?" inquired Al.

"Nothing. Just...the baby," Captain explained, forlornly examining her bite of chicken.

"She'll be _fine_."

"Squishy likes her! Well, she likes Squishy..."

"He'll take good care of her."

"I know..." Captain said, letting the uneaten chicken fall back onto her plate. "It's just that..." Her gaze drifted out the window. She stiffened, dropping her chopsticks. "_Aiya_! Squishy?!"

On cue, their burlap-clad boss pounded past the window. "That was him, wasn't it?" Al asked, checking for her tire iron.

"Of course that was him!" Techie snapped, grabbing a double handful of remote control innards and stuffing them back into place.

The mighty burlap blur was followed by a green one clutching a wailing baby. "Eddums!"

"_Kitten_!" Captain screeched, vaulting the table in one mighty bound. (If asked later, she would have insisted that mighty bounds were _better_ when the array of weaponry on your belt caught on the tablecloth and dragged your entire dinner onto the floor.)

The three henchgirls tumbled toward the door, Al in the lead. They managed to avoid colliding with _too_ many diners on their way to the exit, although a waist-high ceramic vase learned a valuable (and fatal) lesson about being used as an impromptu grapnel point.

They stampeded through the foyer of the restaurant, blitzing past waiting families and shocked hostesses. As they neared the door, Al threw her arms out to stop herself from colliding with the next man in the surprise footrace - Mr. Freeze. She managed to skid to a halt in the doorway just in time for the other two girls to slam into her back. They wedged tightly into the frame, unable to go forward or backward. As he passed, Batman's cape whipped Al in the face.

"Ow! Smeggity-"

"Captain, move your _arm_ - "

"Get your foot off of my elbow!"

"Hey!" A furious male voice sounded directly behind them from the kitchen. "You didn't _pay_!"

As one, the cops in the corner rose to their feet. "Come on, girls. Let's just -" The cop frowned. "Were you three at the arcade this evening?"

"It's them!" the other one confirmed, rubbing a freshly blacked eye. "That one tipped the claw machine over on me!"

Techie dug her booted heels into the restaurant's carpet and _shoved_. They popped out of the restaurant like peas from a popgun and joined in the chase. The cops grabbed their jackets and sprinted after them, puffing and shouting into their radios for backup.

The strange parade screamed down the street. The Scarecrow, in the lead, gasped for air under his mask and swore as his glasses steamed up again. He ripped the mask off and stuffed it in the top of his roughly sewn pants. It almost immediately fell out again and rolled away, forgotten.

Behind him, Eddie clutched the screaming, red-faced baby tightly as he sprinted along in his ragged socks. Kitten, with her face pressed firmly against his left ear, howled like a wolf on a bullhorn. Her angrily kicking legs caught him once, twice, thrice in the abdomen, and he fleetingly wondered how expensive vasectomies were nowadays.

Freeze leveled his ice ray once again at the fleeing rogues in front of him. Then, unexpectedly, his hand opened and the gun bounced away. Since he didn't have a neck, he was able to spin his head completely around to spy Techie about ten yards away, brandishing that cursed remote control of hers. He growled and turned his attention back to the sidewalk in front of him. He'd chase them down sooner or later. After all, _he_ didn't get tired. Not anymore.

As Batman ran, he was formulating plans to take down the rogues without hurting the baby. He had a fairly good idea of just who that baby belonged to, which made it all the more urgent to get it to some parents who weren't criminally insane.

The girls pounded along behind Batman. "Make him stop!" Captain ordered, hurdling a stray dog.

"You're lucky I was able to get him to drop the gun!" Techie panted, scrabbling to get the remote's innards back into place without dropping any of them.

"Stop or we'll shoot!" the cops commanded from the back of the line. But, of course, no one was listening to _them_.

* * *

The Gotham Plaza Hotel was a phenomenal building. From its early roots as a simple inn, it had grown and expanded until it had eaten up almost an entire foursquare of city blocks with convention centers, parking garages, luxury suites and private entertainment facilities.

The Scarecrow, half-blind with fogged glasses, scraped them clear just in time to see this paragon of luxury looming up right in front of him. He tried valiantly to stop himself, but his feet slipped on a forgotten plastic bag on the sidewalk. _WHAM_! He bounced off of the ancient brickwork, spectacles shattered into spiderwebs. Blood from his newly broken nose sprayed festively down his front as he fought to remain standing.

The Riddler, who was too busy running and trying to hold a squirmy baby to bother with little details like looking where he was going, saw the danger just in time to spin. At least he could hit the wall with his shoulder, instead of the baby -

_CRUNCH_! The Scarecrow made a surprisingly good landing pad. Well, at least his bony body was slightly less painful to run into than a century-old brick building. Eddie staggered forward, clutching the unhurt, howling baby. Crane, eyes crossed with pain, slumped onto a handy garbage can and panted miserably as he tried to stop the fountain of blood coursing down his shirt.

Mr. Freeze slowed down just in time to throw out an arm and clothesline the Batman. The vigilante dropped flat on his back, victim to the forces of inertia. "Now, Edward," Freeze said menacingly, trapping the Bat with one green-soled robot foot ground solidly into his sternum. "It's time to pay what you owe."

Kitten flailed and punched Eddie in the face. "Can it wait for just a second?" Eddie gasped, blinking tears out of his eyes. "I think she broke my nose." The Scarecrow muttered something incomprehensibly insulting from his perch atop the garbage.

Batman attempted to free himself with a sudden jerk backward. Freeze's foot pressed down harder into his ribcage as a gentle reminder that while he _could_ stomp a hole right through Batman's chest, he had other things to worry about at the moment. "No waiting," he said evenly. "Now."

As his vision slowly unblurred, Crane suddenly realized that he'd chosen to sit in the midst of the people that had been chasing him for most of the night. He got to his feet as unobtrusively as possible and began to slink off to the nearest alley, hopefully unnoticed.

Techie thundered up to the group, the hastily-reassembled remote clutched in her hands. She triumphantly pointed it at Freeze's back and pressed a large red button. Freeze's joints trembled. Then, with a look of pure unadulterated fury on his face, he spun in a perfect pirouette. (Rather, his _body_ spun quite prettily while his head glared ominously at Techie, promising only the finest in icy deaths without a word needing to be said.) One foot lashed out unexpectedly as Batman rose to his feet, catching him squarely in the chest. He rocketed backward and disappeared into the nearby alley.

As the pirouette slowed, Freeze jabbed a pointed finger toward the sky and cocked a hip saucily outward.

"Disco?" Al hissed at Techie. Techie ignored her in favor of pressing more buttons. His hands fluttered to either side of his face, where he began miming beaks closing and wings flapping. "The Chicken Dance!" Al cried, delighted, as Victor Freeze shook his robotic rump at the Riddler.

The Captain, whose chase had been slightly slowed due to an unfortunate run-in with two men carrying a box full of fresh haddock, slid to a halt just behind her cohorts. A selection of Gotham's finest seafood dangled unappetizingly from various folds in her clothes. "_Stop that_," she hissed, shouldering between her fellow henches. She edged around Freeze as he manically beaked the air with his hands. "Sorry," she muttered, trying not to notice his level-ten death glare burning between her shoulderblades.

Eddie was too busy with the baby to notice anything else. "Stop it," he pleaded, holding her as tightly as he could to try and stop her kicking and hitting him. As if she'd inherited his skill at escaping straitjackets, she wriggled free from each new hold and socked him in the face, sometimes with her fingernails out just to spice things up.

"Give her!" the Captain commanded.

"Take her! _Take her_!" the Riddler urged, all but throwing the baby at her mother.

The Captain turned, cradling the baby, and unthinkingly met Freeze's eyes. She flinched backward ever so slightly from the unexpected glare.

And then, surprisingly, the glare disappeared. "Yours?" he asked flatly, looking at the baby.

"Yes," she answered, avoiding a flailing foot with all the practice that half a year of parenting could give her.

He nodded once and deliberately looked away. Well, there was no better cue than _that_. The Captain, without another word, fled with the still-screaming child, leaving nothing but a faint fishy scent in the air behind her. The Riddler, freed of his burden, limped exhaustedly toward Al and Techie, hoping beyond hope that one of them had a spare pair of shoes tucked in their jackets somewhere.

"Almost got it," Techie muttered, smacking buttons frantically. With a _skree_ of protesting joints, the Amazing Dancing Rogue froze into place with his chicken wings extended. "There!"

The cops finally caught up with the group. "Hold it _right there_," Black-Eye panted, holding his gun in a trembly hand.

Techie turned around, bright-eyed and smiling. "Like _this_?" she inquired, tapping on the remote. Freeze spasmed and began doing the Macarena. "Dammit! Not _that_!"

"I said stop or I'll shoot!" Black-Eye aimed at Freeze as he unwillingly placed his hands on his hips and began to shimmy.

Techie flicked the remote off. "Okay, okay," she said soothingly as Freeze came to a shuddering halt. "We're stopping, we're stopping."

"But what about Squishy?" Al muttered as she raised her hands.

A terrified scream rose from a nearby alley. "I think he's taking care of himself."

* * *

The Scarecrow limped away at full speed. Maybe if he hurried, he could make it to the subway -

Something large and extraordinarily heavy hit him in the back and lifted him off of his feet, sending him tumbling helplessly down the cold alleyway like an airborne bowling ball.

Crane and the mysterious projectile landed in a tangled pile of limbs just at the edge of the dead-end alleyway. It only took half a second to identify this particular black-clad menace to his professional life. The Scarecrow frantically scrabbled on the concrete, prying himself free from the semiconscious vigilante. He wasn't certain how Batman had wound up flying backward through the alley, but it could only mean bad things for him. He stumbled to his feet and lurched away.

Batman's hand on the back of his neck stopped him like a dog on a leash. He fell to the ground, gasping for breath, and valiantly tried to kick himself free as the vigilante yanked him upward. His shoulders hit the bricks with a painful _slap_ of wet burlap.

Oh, great. He couldn't have just gotten a nice quick blow to the head. If he'd had any luck at all, he could have been neatly knocked out and woken up in Arkham's infirmary, where all the lovely pain medication was. No, no. Knocking him unconscious wouldn't have been fun at _all_, not when he could be violently interrogated.

Well, to _hell_ with that. He didn't have a gas mask anymore, but he could hold his breath. With one frantic wheeze, he gulped air and slammed his fingers down on every toxin-release button within his reach. Fear gas puffed out in a dull red cloud from all the cracks and breaks in the battered piping that lined his costume from head to foot.

Batman's eyes began to glaze over in that well-known Going-To-Unhappyland way that Crane's toxin usually induced. One armored fist rocketed out and slammed into Crane's midsection, knocking the air right out of his lungs. Without thinking, the Scarecrow sucked in a gasp of pained astonishment and about fifty doses of fear toxin.

The alley walls grew higher, arching into the sky to form an old, abandoned chapel. The bitter winter air turned hot in his mouth, laden with the dust and mold of the holy walls as they fell victim to the forces of nature. The burlap costume was gone now, replaced with a too-small wool suit that choked him with its horrid smell of rotted meat. Small, alone, and so terribly frightened, he looked upward, hoping for help, hoping for salvation.

A black cloud overhead became a flock of crows. They arrowed down through the hole in the roof, pinning him to the ground as he screamed and screamed and screamed...

* * *

The standoff outside the Gotham Plaza Hotel was going much better than the cops had expected. Freeze's robot body seemed to have seized up, the Riddler was too exhausted to put up much of a fight, and two of the three troublesome girls were obediently holding their hands up and giving each other significant looks. True, with only two cops to hold the four of them, it was unlikely that they were going to be able to do anything more useful than keep them from moving - but with a squadron of backup on the way, who needed to do anything but wait?

Yes, the standoff was going well - that is, until the fear-crazed Batman hurtled out of the alley like one of the Four Horsemen who had forgotten to set his alarm. Batarangs and assorted other weaponry scythed through the air, landing on every bit of vulnerable rogue that they could find. The glass surrounding Freeze's head _pock_ed ominously as the bat-shaped projectiles slammed into it, sending the tiniest of cracks snaking across his vision. A well-aimed bola caught both Al and Techie around the midsection, tying them together into a furiously swearing bundle on the sidewalk. Eddie, attempting to run away on his numb feet, tripped over them and faceplanted on the sidewalk, accompanied by a fresh barrage of batarangs.

And then Batman, eyes nearly glowing red with the force of fear-fueled hate behind them, noticed the two trembling men aiming guns at him. Cape flaring, armor gleaming in the soft lights of the nighttime street, and a look of pure psychotic horror on his face, he lunged toward the cops with the clear intention of disarming them (and not necessarily by merely removing their guns). As any red-blooded American would do when faced with a few hundred pounds of charging fury, they ran for it.

Techie kicked herself free of the remains of the bola as the forces of justice chased each other away. "Everyone okay?" she asked, rubbing a batwing-shaped welt on her cheekbone.

"Fine," Al muttered, testing her ankle to make sure it was merely sprained instead of broken.

"Peachy," Eddie groaned, not bothering to move from his spread-eagled position on the cold concrete. A soft, childlike whimpering echoing from the nearby alley told them more than they needed to know about the Scarecrow's current condition.

"Come on," Techie said, pulling the unwilling Riddler up from his oh-so-comfy resting place. "Let's get you two home."

Al disappeared into the alley, returning with the trembling Scarecrow draped limply over her shoulder. "See if we ever let _you_ babysit again," she scolded her boss as she carefully walked him down the street.

"Good," he muttered indistinctly.

"What was that?" Al asked sharply.

He gazed blankly past her. "Good birds," he mumbled thickly. "Nice birds - _aaaaagh_!"

"C'mon, Squishface. Let's go home and have a nice warm cup of antitoxin." The group shuffled off into the depths of Gotham, looking somewhat like a pair of lovesick upright octopi out for a stroll.

Freeze silently watched them go. Then, with one hand clamped over the holes in his face mask, he began the long stalk back to his own lair. He still felt the burning need for revenge lurking sullenly inside him, but it didn't seem quite so urgent now. After all, following the Riddler meant following..._them_...and trouble clung to them like gum in hair.

Besides, there was always tomorrow. With grim plans trailing through his head, Freeze lurched toward home.

* * *

_Author's Note: I blame this on repeated listening to Yakety Sax. Also, since I've sorta got a Kitten of my own now (okay, he's not the Riddler's lovechild, but hey - maybe that's for the best) it's too easy to put babies together with the Batverse. _

_I tried to keep this as in-canon as possible. (Of course, that would have been a lot easier if the relevant gaps in the CATverse canon had been filled in...hint, hint...) I also tried to have this done two weeks ago, but unexpected trips to the ER and sudden surgeries do tend to put a dent in my free time._

_So, Captain, Al and Techie - merry Christmas, happy New Year, and thanks for all the fish. _


End file.
